MPs Wikipedia pages 'changed from inside Parliament'

MPs and staff working in the House of Commons have made nearly 10,000 changes
to Wikipedia pages, it has emerged.

Nearly one in every six MPs has had their entry in the online encyclopedia changed from inside Parliament, many of which altered embarrassing details and allegations.

Dozens of attempts were made to edit out information revealed by the Daily Telegraph’s expenses scandal in 2009.

Analysis carried out by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism also revealed a range of other alterations, on topics as diverse as Harry Potter, Pringles and the laws of incest.

One Parliamentary employee edited an entry about The Lord of the Rings to describe it as “12 hours of utter tripe about some little bender running around trying to find a ring with his equally benderish mates”.

Another altered the spelling of “Dalek” to “Darlek”, before realising his mistake, and a third reduced the number of women forced into sexual slavery during the Second World War from 60,000 to 10,000.

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One member of staff corrected spelling errors in a piece discussing whether Pringles were crisps or cakes and another pointed out of Ken Livingstone’s surname was not, indeed, “Twatface”.

More seriously, some entries for MPs were edited to “correct” or entirely remove details of their expenses claims.

In research commissioned by the Independent, IP addresses were used to identify where the editing was taking place and found them to be within the Houses of Parliament.

The newspaper claims at least 30 attempts were made to remove information about Joan Ryan, who stepped down as a Labour MP in 2010, from inside Parliament.

There is now no information about her expenses claims on the site.

The former MP told the Independent she had merely altered “misleading or untruthful information”.

Clare Short, whose expenses details were also changed, told the newspaper her staff were “angry and protective” about inaccurate information posted on her Wikipedia page, but said she had not changed it herself.

“I never look at it,” she added.

It is not possible to determine who exactly made any of the online changes.

Jon Davies, chief executive of Wikimedia UK, the UK charity which supports Wikipedia, said the site would welcome any MPs who chose to become editors.